By: Sam Desatoff

King, the developer of Candy Crush Saga, now owns a trademark on the word “candy”.

According to Gamezebo.com, the application was filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on February 2013 and approved January of 2014.

The trademark indicates that there is enough of an association between the word “candy” and King’s game to warrant official ownership of a trademark as it pertains to games. After the approval was final, King immediately began enforcing their trademark.

Candy Crush Saga, King’s hugely successful puzzle game, has been dominating mobile app store sales charts for months, and the developer wants to keep it that way.

The day following the clearing of its trademark application, King.com began issuing notices of opposition to companies responsible for games with the word “candy” in the name.

King’s actions are to protect its profits as the app store, is notorious for being a hotbed of clones and imitations, However, games with no similarity to Candy Crush Saga are being targeted as well. King has targeted the application, All Candy Casino Slots – Jewels Craze Connect: Big Blast Mania Land. Aside from the use of the word “candy”, the two games share no gameplay mechanics.

King has also filed paperwork to trademark the word “saga” as it pertains to games. According to GameInformer.com, the application for trademark has been suspended, but that has not stopped King from issuing notices of opposition.

The Banner Saga, a recently released PC title by Stoic Studios, has been the target of resistance from the Candy Crush Saga developers. The Banner Saga is mechanically very different from Candy Crush. King has gone on record saying that they are out to stop copycats, not to stop the use of the word “saga”. However, according to Kotaku.com and Stoic Studios, the filing against The Banner Saga remains.

This is not the first instance of gaming studios butting heads over trademarks. In 2012, Mojang, the indie studio behind the massively popular game Minecraft, announced a new game titled Scrolls. Bethesda Softworks, the publisher behind the seminal Elder Scrolls series, felt the name infringed on their trademark.

The two studios settled out of court, but the case displayed the potential conflict the current copyright laws in this country are capable of igniting.